http://whowhatwhy.com Groundbreaking Investigative Journalism That Explores the Truth Behind Current Events Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:18:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The first anniversary of Barack Obama's historic election finds many of his supporters already grousing. Fair enough: Obama has been more vigorous in some areas than others. But one essential question goes unasked: How much can any president accomplish against the wishes of recalcitrant power centers within his own government?We ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/03/10/what-obama-is-up-against/ As the New York Times reports, Large batches of e-mail records from the Justice Department lawyers who worked on the 2002 legal opinions justifying the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation techniques are missing, and the Justice Department told lawmakers Friday that it would try to trace the disappearance. At a Senate Judiciary Committee ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/03/03/deja-vu-all-over-again-and-again-and-again/ Does waterboarding make people take back what they said earlier? Well, in one case, the man who said that waterboarding works has now taken it back. In an article on Foreign Policy's website by Jeff Stein-an article which should merit wide attention but does not seem to have gotten ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/02/03/waterboarding-gate/ My experience is that the biggest potential stories are simply too big for the major organs of daily journalism. That's the lesson I learned writing my book, Family of Secrets. That's also why I started www.WhoWhatWhy.com.  Where we do find the really explosive material, it often pops up in the ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/01/28/must-read-journalism-cell-phones-and-you/ Lately, from conversations and reading posts on the Web, I have been struck by how many people have developed hardened positions on the assassination of JFK based on inadequate information. Lots of people, for example, are unaware of the extraordinary number of witnesses who told stories that ran counter to ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/01/20/enforced-conformity-is-deadly-for-democracy/ Traditional journalism organizations as a matter of practice eschew and even sometimes demonize the work of independent journalists who document apparent high-level collusion against the broader public interest.  "Conspiracy theory," they sniff. Yet with the fast-changing media landscape, even the most cautious enterprises are suddenly suffused with the spirit of ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/01/12/a-fresh-wind/ The Washington Post has great reporters, but as a journalistic institution, it has been strikingly sympathetic to the ruling establishment. Over the decades, reporters there have complained repeatedly about how their efforts to break out of an emerging consensus have been stymied, overtly or more subtly. See for example pages ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/01/06/the-post-journalism-era/ Support Fearless, Nonpartisan, Independent Investigative Journalism that takes on the subjects, institutions and people that few news outlets will touch. This is a Beta site awaiting public funding so it can go daily. If you like what you see here, if you appreciate the kind of serious journalistic exploration of “deep ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2010/01/06/support-fearless-nonpartisan-independent-investigative-journalism-that-takes-on-the-subjects-institutions-and-people-that-few-news-outlets-will-touch/ Too seldom do we get advance notice of what corporate interests are up to in the political arena—doings that are too often masked, sometimes hidden behind a staged “citizen uprising”. That’s why it’s good to see this piece in the New York Times: Like about a dozen other states, Florida is ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2009/12/30/%e2%80%9cindividual-liberty%e2%80%9d-hidden-corporate-interests-dodgy-amazon-reviews/ Here in the United States, we are regularly warned by the media and the pundits not to subscribe to wacky “conspiracy theories.”  (For more on this theme, see my book, Family of Secrets.)  Even a suggestion that figures tied to our intelligence services might have participated in something seriously untoward ... http://whowhatwhy.com/2009/12/11/a-chilean-chiller/